Many companies rely on the job scheduling and alerting services provided with the native SQL Server Agent service. From backups to SSRS subscription to SSIS packages, SQL Server Agent has the capability to run many types of business critical tasks on a regular...

It’s that time of year that a good amount of IT departments are dedicating time to researching and planning for their 2018 IT budgets. As you know, the growth of your company and it's data depends heavily on your IT infrastructure, so the decisions you make and the...

Technical communities are thriving and the knowledge they provide to professionals is immense. In the SQL Server community especially, countless blog sites, forum posts, tweets, webinars and white papers exist that help DBAs solve tough problems every day and we are...

You know the old joke that goes, “A DBA walks into a bar, sees some friends at a couple of tables and asks if he can join them.”? Well, as DBAs we are used to dealing with tables. Whether the data comes from a log file, trace file, or XML, we want to turn it into a...

Microsoft announced the much anticipated SQL Server 2017 release is available for download today. This version is packed with so many features, here are just a few of what we’re looking forward to here at SQLWatchmen: Always On Availibility Group – supporting the...

The Problem with Overprovisioning in the Cloud When it is time to purchase new resources for one or more applications, the non-scientific approach of “guesstimating” the requirements can be expensive whether for on-premises capital expenditures or Cloud-based...

Row-Level Security (RLS) is one of the most often asked for features that I hear from customers. Done correctly, Row-Level Security ensures data segregation for users in a single database. This ensures each user can only view or manipulate data that they can access....

Intro Microsoft SQL Server has had Mirroring starting with version 2005, and now that SQL Server 2012 is released, there is an additional feature set called AlwaysOn (marketing info | technical info). AlwaysOn in currently an Enterprise only feature, so Standard...

Is a DBA just a button clicker? Can a good DBA be replaced by anyone who knows the same technical skills? 'Supporting the business' can be a lot more involved. What Does a DBA (Database Administrator) Do Anyway? Some people think a DBA simply Tweets, Facebooks,...

I'll be presenting at this months SQL Server User Group (UG) meeting of CACTUSS Central (www.cactuss.org) this upcoming Monday 9/19/2011. The location of the presentation is here. The abstract is below. Abstract In the past, High Availability and Disaster Recovery...